Behind the Forced Regime Change in Libya

London, Paris and Washington could not allow a
ceasefire because it would have involved negotiations, first about
peace lines, peacekeepers and so forth, and then about fundamental
political differences. And all this would have subverted the
possibility of the kind of regime change that interested the
Western powers. The sight of representatives of the rebellion
sitting down to talks with representatives of Gaddafi’s regime,
Libyans talking to Libyans, would have called the demonisation of
Gaddafi into question. The moment he became once more someone
people talked to and negotiated with, he would in effect have been
rehabilitated. And that would have ruled out
violent—revolutionary?—regime change and so denied the Western
powers their chance of a major intervention in North Africa’s
Spring, and the whole interventionist scheme would have flopped.
The logic of the demonisation of Gaddafi in late February, crowned
by the referral of his alleged crimes against humanity to the
International Criminal Court by Resolution 1970 and then by
France’s decision on 10 March to recognise the NTC as the sole
legitimate representative of the Libyan people, meant that Gaddafi
was banished for ever from the realm of international political
discourse, never to be negotiated with, not even about the
surrender of Tripoli when in August he offered to talk terms to
spare the city further destruction, an offer once more dismissed
with contempt. And this logic was preserved from start to finish,
as the death toll of civilians in Tripoli and above all Sirte
proves. The mission was always regime change, a truth obscured by
the hullabaloo over the supposedly imminent massacre at
Benghazi.